


The Long And Slow Fizzle

by AnIdiotWithNapalm



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Last man standing type of deal, Rimmer is useless, Take place before legion, Then again maybe not, but he trys, but it'll probably end happily, idk where this is going, they're on the dwarf
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27045352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnIdiotWithNapalm/pseuds/AnIdiotWithNapalm
Summary: They're losing energy fast, which isnt good when two of your friends rely on it for survival.
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

The ship known as red dwarf was slowly moving across the barren void of space.  
The ship had been doing this for over 3 million years and wasn't going to stop anytime soon, not if the last remaining passengers had anything to say about it. The passengers in question had spent the last week cleaning and repairing the interior of the red dwarf ship after they had encountered a nasty case of simulants who had decided to drop by and try to torture and kill the last human alive, safe to say no one was particularly pleased with the circumstances.  
The only one not doing work (if you consider the antics of the cat to be work) was second technician Arnold Rimmer, one would think he wasn't doing work due to lazyness or perhaps to spite his fellow ship mates but the real reason was because he was an intangible holographic dead man who couldn't pick up a mop any more than a gecko could sing opera. Arnold wasn't particularly pleased with not being able to help out however due to his insane standards and habits which made every speck of dirt his bunkmate Dave Lister missed all the more agonising since he couldn't clean it up or punch the man.  
After several hours of cleaning everything was pretty much done. The only thing left to do would be to turn the ships AI Holly back on. Unfortunately they decided to wait until after dinner to do this so the following events that will take place will be without the help of the one person who controls and operates the ship and nearly everything in it, a big mistake.

Everyone was sat together at a rectangular table, for dinner, Lister was eating gammon vindaloo and considering throwing up right there and then, the cat was partaking in a delicious ten fish platter with all of the garnishings he could shake a stick at and Kryten was sat with some oil and rust removal to make sure his body was in tip top working conditions, Rimmer had an empty paper plate and cup with some plastic cutlery for decoration.  
The origin of Arnold's table setting originally came from a joke both lister and the cat had played on him after the hologram had spent the day complaining about his lack of food requirements and his argument with lister about table manners when using his fork as a catapult but the plate and utensils stayed after he discovered it made him feel more normal and accepted, it also stopped his complaining during dinner time which was a bonus for the others.  
Everyone (who could) was tucking into their meals when the ship jolted and rocked, the force of the jolt ended up sending the three crew members who had physical bodies onto their arses and sent the contents of their plates on top of them, wasting no time everyone sped their way to the bridge to find out what happened.

Unfortunately their current predicament wasn't the best, since the Red Dwarf had somehow gotten itself trapped in the orbit of a nearby planet, a planet that wasn't so much a planet but rather a ball of toxic gas and acid that would completely obliterate anything within a three hundred mile radius, and they were only six hundred miles away and closing in fast.  
Lister was about to say something encouraging and positive, something probably along the lines of "hey, it could be worse" but was quickly shut up when it in fact did get worse, a lot of debri has floated out into the dephs of space, and unfortunately the death planet had collected a nice assortment of very sharp and fast moving scrap that seemed to think it was a lovely day to be tearing into the sides of the ship and helpfully releasing a mass amount of oxygen and essential technology that would otherwise be very helpful in a situation similar to this. Safe to say things were not looking up.  
"okay, we've got to make a plan and fast, first we need to fix the oxygen problem" lister said while making glances to a particularly red panel that was describing how smegged they were in terms of breathing, "we can't just go up to a hole in the ship and ask it politely to close! we're going to need a proper plan you gimboid!" Rimmer said clearly panicked, leaning down to make sure the scouser was paying attention to his semi insult.

Lister started pacing back and forth in front of the others racking his brain hoping for a marvellous plan that would save them when the cat suddenly spoke up out of nowhere, "why don't we just close the doors?" Lister's eyes widened and did a running hug towards the cat for the brilliant idea and the turned to close all of the exits to the bridge, it would trap them all together in the one spot but at least their oxygen would be spared for at least until they had a proper plan, the only thing no one was betting on was the fact that not only was their oxygen depleting, but so was their energy, which wasn't the best when two of your crew mates required energy to survive...


	2. Chapter 2

It had been 3 hours since the ship had been hit, they were 567 miles from the ship destroying atmosphere, no one was particularly happy to say the least.  
Lister had been made aware of their energy problem when he noticed that every so often a panel would flicker and dim before sparking and turning off completely with no way to bring it back up, it seemed to be a domino effect as twelve panels had done this so far leaving them with only five left. The vending machine had also shut down leaving them with no way to get food. Despite some rewiring and group efforts no one could get Holly back up and working due to her mainframe being a couple of miles across the ship, they also realised that perhaps the hologram projection unit had been hit when Kryten had come over and whispered about the faint flickering and fizzing seen around Rimmers image, something the hologram has so far been unaware of, it seemed luck was on their side in that department because if their dead crewmate did notice, he would most certainly freak.  
The cat had been hitting the dead vending machine for nearly half an hour before he realised it wasn't working, he turned to everyone and said "I think it's busted", everyone groaned.  
"please god, if we're gonna die make it quick, I don't want my last moments to be here with these smeg heads" lister spoke aloud for everyone to hear and nod along to, they weren't thrilled about dying with their current company either.  
Kryten had taken the time to make a chart of which machines they should turn off as to conserve power for their essentials, by the time he had done explaining they had dropped two more panels, they were down to three. They no longer had tabs on their oxygen levels and the only thing they did know was that the scutters had finished their John Wayne marathon and had moved on to actually doing some work, they had no way to contact the scutters which had left lister laying across the panel weeping as he continued to shout out instructions that the little robots would never receive. Basically they were smegged.  
"I don't understand why we didn't turn Holly back on, what on earth were you thinking listy?" Rimmer said accusingly to the depressed lister who was lamenting the fact the last meal he had was a gammon vindaloo which had been threatening to leap from his gullet since the first bite, LIster was unfortunately agreeing with Rimmer at that moment, why hadn't he turned her back on? Why was he so stupid as to think something wouldn't go wrong for 0.5 seconds? Still, Rimmer had no right to plant all of the blame on him when it was him who had said it could wait.  
He turned to face the hologram but found a twitchy monochrome statue of his bunk mate instead, this was the worst glitch he had seen, Rimmers face had frozen in a scowl with parts of his face changing to different expressions before changing back, his limbs were pixelated and jutted slowly as if the image was trying to catch up with itself and all sounds that should've been emmiting from him had turned to a distorted static with only a few words making their way through, such as "goit" "ship" and "smeghe-". Lister found himself extremely uncomfortable with the image before him and wanted to look away, he moved from the holograms line of sight and peered around him followed by Kryten and the cat doing the same, they were so stunned by the glitch they almost forgot that they should try and fix it.  
Lister tried to grab the lightbee but instead received a burn on his hand, the light bee was heating up, this was bad considering lightbees were very delicate and broke easy, they couldn't stand extreme temperatures so the fact it had gotten hot to the point of burning was impressive, Kryten saw Lister's hand pull back and made the grab himself, his plastic fingers began to Melt under the burning tech but he manged to turn it off anyway using a pen to press the off button, but he unfortunately ended up dropping it on the floor, LIster and Kryten audibly gasped as half of the bee shattered, and with a small flicker of light, they found themselves missing a crewmate.  
The cat smiled slightly at the loss but quickly frowned when he realised Kryten had stopped moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didnt expect to kill Rimmer off so fast but then again I never know where any of my stories go, I never make plans *exasperated face emoji*


	3. Chapter 3

I wasn't that he was dead, in fact he was the most safe at the moment but instead of being alert he was instead trapped in limbo inside the hologram projection unit, unable to do anything but wait, wait for his friends to either save him. Or join the real Arnold Rimmer. 

The cat noticed Krytens immobility and alerted lister to the scene, both men stared at the mechanoid and thought for a second they had lost two of the possy within a minute of each other, this was not the case.  
No, instead Kryten was mulling over the situation, it would be useless to try and fix the lighbee in hopes of reviving Mr Rimmer, by the time they got the projector working the oxygen would be all but gone and without Holly they couldn't turn on the main projectors. Further mulling got him thinking, what had caused the glitch? It wasn't the power drain, normal power drain simply meant the slow fade out of the hologram, loss of colour and distorted voice was normal but not freezing and breaking, that was more of a... Virus way of going.  
Kryten was hesitant to release the information of a potential virus in fear of causing a panic, because if there was virus there was a chance it was shutting the ship down faster, which meant they really had less time than they think. Knowing that eventually they would discover it themselves sooner or later he opted to tell them before they turned against him, he feared their response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short and it was meant to be longer but idk if I'm gonna finish this one and I wanted to move on which meant publishing it.


End file.
